Sep 16, 2009

Why is Social Media Optimization the New SEO?

The latest buzz in Internet marketing has something to do with social media optimization (SMO). The amazing popularity of social media services like Twitter has given birth to the concept of SMO, and many observers are wondering whether marketing through social media platforms is achieving better results than organic SEO.

What is social media optimization anyway, and how is it different, or similar, to organic SEO? Below are some points of comparison between the two:

1. SMO utilizes social media services like Twitter and Facebook to reach out to target market. SMO leverages the unique ability of social media services to cater to a global audience. Organic SEO, on the other hand, utilizes diverse venues such as niche websites, forums, article and magazine sites, directories, and the like, to capture a broader audience.

2. SMO techniques aim to get people’s attention, while organic SEO primarily aims to be noticed by search engines.

3. SMO practitioners establish relationships with social media users, building followers and following others. Organic SEO builds links, and establishes relationships with other websites.

4. SMO aims to spread the marketing message as a proverbial word-of-mouth, being tweeted from one user to another, while organic SEO aims to get websites to rank high, preferably at the first pages, of search engine search results.

There maybe critical differences and similarities between the two, but creating an Internet marketing campaign combining the best of both will almost certainly bring in more traffic to websites.